98 MANURING. 
MANURES AND THEIR APPLICATION TO 
THE COFFEE PLANT. | 
(To the Editor of the Ceylon Observer.) . 
DEAR Sir,—Like many a better man, I take a great 
interest in the planting correspondence of the Observer. 
Most coffee planting topics find exponents there. If 
the ideas expressed are not always convincing, they 
are often instructive, and always suggestive. ‘‘P. M.” 
and ‘‘An Old Shuck Coffee-tree” should favour us 
with more of their views regarding cultivation; they 
would be appreciated I think by all your readers. In 
these matured utterances of experienced men, we find 
a sort of ready-made wisdom, which to us individuals 
would be slow of acquirement. And the more prac- 
tical and valuable the suggestions are, the more readily 
we follow them and adopt them as our own. 
Most fruitful and many-sided of subjects is that of 
Manuring. Have we not been hammering away per- 
sistently for years at the idea that all that was wanted 
to increase the crops and the profits was, manure.. 
And has not manure been spread liberally all over 
Ceylon till even the coffee tree seems to enter a mild 
protest against the reckless extravagance. Poonac ! 
Bones of all kinds, crushed, ground, steamed and dis- 
solved ! what have you done? Sulphate of Ammonia, 
and Nitrates of Potash, and Phosphates of all hues 
and smells! where are your results? Already a low 
but ominous sound is heard, ‘‘ Miserable comforters 
are ye all,” and the export sheet will soon confirm 
it. Excellent materials no doubt, all those I have 
named, Use them in suitable places and in an intelli- 
gent manner, and they must do good. Whether the 
amount of good they accomplish is proportionate to 
the expense incurred is another matter and one worth 
inquiring into. Such, however, is not my purpose 
now. Ina future letter I may advocate a system, and 
prove some results, which would show that manuring, 
compared with high cultivation without manure, was 
but a very indifferent financial success. Meanwhile, 
manures of all kinds are being largely used as food for 
coftee trees, I wish to speak of the way in which 
these ought to be applied, In olden times it was, 
and is even now pretty generally, considered the cor- 
rect thing to bury cattle dung and pulp in a hole 
near each tree, each hole being 18 inches or 2 feet 
deep and wide. Some planters preferred them larger, 
but at any rate the thing insisted on was depth. Woe 
betide the unfortunate sinna durai ofa dozen years 
ago, who failed to exact the statute meusurement from 
the coolies. Well, the hole was dug and the manure 
buried out of sight, and a mound of the excavated 
